I completely understand that many people do not like some of my observations because I strive to be as unbiased as possible.
I completely understand that many people do not like some of my observations because I strive to be as unbiased as possible. I know they want me to express a bias which is compatible with their own. There are consequences to bias which can leave us paying a societal, even global price when we allow events to proceed without examining them more closely. Right now we are still paying a price for legislation which was created over 100 years ago for the purpose of silencing and imprisoning those who spoke out against WWI and against the neoliberal economic order. That said, let’s jump into this.
We have no idea what is in the documents taken from Maralago. There is a lot of speculation but nothing officially announced.
The actions of the FBI regarding Trump at this moment would have far less impact if the FBI had not openly stated that HRC had, in fact, violated the law but that she would not be prosecuted. Likewise with the Hunter Biden laptop.
All of this highlights a question which I have brought up, though I am far from the first. That question is: Who decides if a document is classified and by what criteria? The answer is that we have 17 intelligence agencies, the House, the Senate and the executive branch, any of whom can declare anything as “classified” for any reason they choose. There are no standards on classification.
If there is an attempt to declassify a document, it results in a power struggle between various agencies and entities. Yet there is likewise no set procedure for declassification.
As far as espionage is concerned, this again has a very loose definition. Consider the fact that someone who is not even an American citizen is currently being accused of espionage for revealing classified information. I mean Julian Assange, an Australian journalist who revealed war crimes by the US. He also revealed DNC corruption and the suppression of the Sanders campaign, which was declared classified information by the DNC, which is not a governmental agency and not subject to FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request.
The irony here is that if Obama, Trump or Biden had pardoned Assange, chances are what is happening now would lend weight to one side or the other’s claims. All have failed to do so. In addition, if the intelligence agencies had stated that what Assange did was not a crime, that would have added trust to the FBI investigation and the FBI as an organization.
The content of the documents taken from Maralago does matter. A lot. If the only claim being made regarding espionage against Trump has to do with the possession of the documents and not the content of the documents, it matters. If there is nothing which is actually potentially damaging to national security, then the only accusation being leveled has to do with secretive government entities trying to hide information.
If the claims against Trump have to do with contact with foreign governments during his time in office, these are historical records which detail past events. In those cases, it is literally the president’s job to engage in contact with foreign governments. It is also likely that, even if these are original documents, that copies of those documents exist and any governmental actions as a result of those contacts are primarily public record. In today’s world, electronic copies of records are often more valid than original documents because of the metadata attached. Paper documents are more easily altered or forged than electronic records are.
Unelected, secretive organizations with their own internal biases and agendas. Several top FBI officials were fired because they were shown to have a political bias which determined the actions of that organization.
An investigation should be viewed by the public as exactly that. It means there is a question as to whether a crime has been committed. It means nothing has yet been determined. It is first the result of that investigation which matters.
In the case of Hillary Clinton, the investigation determined that she had actually broken the law. She did this with the entire State Department to use for reference and consultation, to include the FBI and James Comey, himself, to prevent her from violating the law. Not to mention that she is a lawyer, a former member of Congress and former First Lady of the US, married to a lawyer and former US president. If you were accused of a crime, even making an illegal right hand turn in traffic, ignorance of that law is not a legal defense. You are still guilty and will pay the consequences. James Comey is not a judge and had no right to determine that Clinton was not guilty because “she didn’t mean to break the law”. Yet the neoliberal establishment accepted the determination of an unelected official with an obvious proven bias, stating that she was not guilty for that reason.
After an investigation, we have a grand jury, also an unelected, unaccountable group of people who determine whether an indictment should be issued. An indictment is an accusation, nothing else. A former NY State Attorney General once stated, “I can indict a ham sandwich.” I can accuse anyone of anything. None of that means there is any truth to the accusation. To make the determination is what we have courts for. Then we still have to deal with the bias of the individual court. Which court charges will be filed in is carefully chosen by prosecutors in an attempt to obtain a conviction based on the known bias of that specific court.
Americans on the right and the left have raged for many decades over governmental transparency, bias and judicial malpractice. Each side rages more at one time or another, based on what is being revealed, hidden or decided. This is all dependent not on fairness, justice or ethics. The reaction of each side is dependent solely on whether a particular event is biased in favor of their own preference.
There are no easy answers to any of this. Bias will always exist. Yet to allow the functioning of our government to be decided by unelected employees of government agencies that take immense steps to amplify, hide and protect their own unassailable, frequently unaccountable hold on power has no chance of a positive outcome in the short term or long term.
What this case and many others truly illustrates is the need for more transparency and accountability in our government. One not small part of this would begin with establishing specific criteria and processes for determining what information should be considered classified and a clear method of declassifying information. With much of that information, classification status should have a realistic time frame in which information should be automatically declassified. In all cases, any classification status should include criteria under which information should no longer be considered classified. No information should be considered classified to maintain secrecy which would otherwise give our government or military a negative image. Such as known war crimes. Other examples would be all information regarding UFOs, the report on 9/11 and the assassinations of JFK, MLK and Bobby Kennedy.
The truth is that FOIA requests should not exist. All declassified information should be digitized in an easily searchable database and available to any American at any time at no expense. The release of information would definitely cause a lot of uproar for quite some time, based on past actions by our government. Going forward, doing this would increase trust in our government and make all of us more safe, not less so. It would also be a major step in alleviating the unseen power and biases of the intelligence agencies.
Honestly, there are no heroes in this particular situation. Trump is not a hero. The FBI is not unbiased. I want to remind people that it was the FBI that performed the investigations on which the House Unamerican Activities Commission (HUAC) acted. In other words, Joseph McCarthy. As McCarthyism rears its ugly, extremely anti-American head again, it will be the FBI that conducts the witch hunt to label anyone with anti-corporate views as a “Communist”. This definitely means me and could mean you.
That said, Trump is the only president in US history to have challenged the intelligence community and what we today call the Deep State. That is, except for JFK, who announced he was going to disband the CIA. One week later, he was assassinated. While none of what Trump has done has any form of altruistic intent, someone needs to be reining in their power and calling them out publicly.
As of now, Trump has requested that a third party examine the documents taken from Maralago before the FBI examines the documents. This is a reasonable request, as long as whomever does that examination has the proper security clearance. I will remind everyone that the people who worked for Hillary Clinton and were known to have accessed the classified documents at the exact time in which she was the acting Secretary of State. Did not have the proper security clearance to access that information. In one case, some of those classified documents wound up on an abusive boyfriend’s laptop. You will remember that the mainstream media barely mentioned this fact, if they mentioned it at all. Let’s not let that mistake happen again.
Neither the right or the left can let all of this happen blindly, foolishly for the sake of our own bias. We will be paying the consequences for the rest of our lives.
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